The next-gen iPhone could be in our grubby little hands as soon as September.

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This year's iPhone refresh may come slightly earlier than last year's, but still within the general fall timeframe. Not one, but two publications cited sources claiming the device could launch as early as mid-September, with a special Apple event happening earlier in the month. But it wouldn't just be the iPhone that would see a refresh at that time—the rumored "iPad mini" is also supposedly nearing launch, not to mention the first major iPod touch bump in two years.

iMore was the first to name September 12 as a potential date for Apple's fall event. The site has been correct in the past about Apple event dates, though Apple deciding definitively on a September date this early on seems almost too early from our perspective. Still, iMore believes Apple plans to announce a new iPhone as well as the iPad mini, and that the new iPhone would be available to the public on Friday, September 21.

iLounge then followed up with more information from a source about what they believe will be updated in September. iLounge supports iMore's assertion that the new iPhone will indeed launch in September instead of October (like it did last year), but it seems much more ambiguous about a potential iPad mini launch. "The iPad mini will apparently not be ready to ship at the same time as the new iPhone, and might have its own debut event," wrote iLounge Editor-in-Chief Jeremy Horowitz. "Our source says that it could ship by November, which we noted would be really close to year’s end, during a month that typically doesn’t see new hardware releases from Apple; our source stood firm on the target date."

This would support previous rumors from the Wall Street Journaland Bloomberg stating that the smaller-screened iPad would indeed launch before the end of 2012. But doing so would go against Apple's currently established pattern of making major iPad releases earlier in the year—around the March/April timeframe. That doesn't mean Apple can't break its own pattern (it did last year when the company moved the traditional iPhone launch date from summer to fall), so it's really anyone's guess as to whether this will indeed happen in the next several months.

As for the iPod touch, Horowitz claims its form factor will match that of the new iPhone, which is widely expected to get a bump from 3.5 inches to 4 inches diagonally. (The processor, however, may end up being an A4). The real question, though: is Apple ready to kill the iPod classicthis year, or will it see a stay of execution for another year?

Update: All Things D has now confirmed that Apple will hold an event during the week of September 12. Looks like that's most likely going to be the date after all.

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Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui